


I'm not crazy / I'm just a little impaired

by CurlicueCal, LaughingStones



Series: Shadowbound AU [1]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - Urban Fantasy, Gen, Humanstuck, Soul Bond, magic as science, shadows as daemons/familiars, teens doing dumb shit with their souls
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-14
Updated: 2016-02-14
Packaged: 2018-05-14 15:48:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 935
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5748880
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CurlicueCal/pseuds/CurlicueCal, https://archiveofourown.org/users/LaughingStones/pseuds/LaughingStones
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rule number one of inviting an extraplanar entity to manifest itself through your soul:</p><p>Know what you're doing.</p><p>Neither Gamzee nor Dirk got the memo.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I'm not crazy / I'm just a little impaired

**Author's Note:**

> A bit of scene-setting for our shadow-daemons/shadow-familiars au :3

_All day staring at the ceiling_  
_Making friends with shadows on my wall_

_-Matchbox 20, "Unwell"_

 

\--

 

_I. Singular_

Gamzee was thirteen when he summoned his shadow. The blood wasn’t a problem. He knew where all the knives were. His dad was none too careful with them.

The ceremony wasn’t a problem either–they taught that shit in school. Just the basics at his grade, but he’d filled in the edges with the internet. Supplies didn’t seem complicated. The bit he wasn’t quite sure about was the words he should speak, and he worried it didn’t all get out in the right way.

Mostly what he had was need. A burning need as ate away at him, a yearning all up in heart and lungs and stomach to _not be alone anymore_. To be touched, to be seen, to be anything at all to someone else, he had a soul-deep hunger for it, mountains high.

So he spoke the words as weren’t quite right, and he spilled his blood as was wanted, and he cast his need out into the aether for whatever would have him.

And he was answered.

People said bonding your shadow-sib made you complete, balanced you out, but the thing what came out of the dark for Gamzee felt more than that. His soul struck like a bell and sang back echoes from another. The new presence wrapped all through and round his mind, except it wasn’t new, it was old, old like night and weathered bones. Old and familiar like finding home.

Gamzee looked at the wall, where his shadow flickered and moved in the candlelight. “Hey,” he said shaky, aloud though it wasn’t necessary.

 _Hey, little brother mine,_ said the voice in his head, warm like arms around his shoulders, deep like the dark inside a coffin. _Sing out praises, here I am._

 

_\--_

 

_II. Many_

Dirk was sixteen when he summoned his shadow.  It did not go exactly as planned.  

He was a little young for it, of course, but he’d long since completed his studies, and not even his teachers could argue anymore that he wasn’t ready to advance.  He’d had months to fine-tune his calculations and perfect his summoning diagrams.  But then, his ceremony would necessarily be somewhat different from the norm.

He’d scored high for resonance with heart and flame in all the aptitude tests.  His resonance with time entities was lower, but still adequate, and he suspected most people assumed that was the direction he’d go.  Time was a highly sought after skillset for people with his academic ambitions.  Dirk had encouraged the assumption among his advisors.  He didn’t want any well-meaning interference with his actual plans.

The initial stages of the ceremony went perfectly according to his projections.  He laid each line of his blood with care according to the guidelines he’d drawn out in advance with ruler and protractor.  More blood was required, given the alterations he’d made to the protocols, but he’d taken that into account.  

It didn’t start going wrong until the third stage.  All the candles were lit and he read aloud the rather extensive chant that would open his mind and amplify the call–the trickiest part had been writing it such that the multiple resonances didn’t cancel each other out.  

Long moments went by as he waited, but finally, something echoed back along the net of energy he’d cast out in request.  Something touched his mind.  And then a second touch, and then more.  Like someone tapping at the door, but with each additional tap the noise amplified until the pounding shook him to his bones.  Dizzy and reeling, Dirk watched his candlelit shadow split again and again, until the room seemed filled with a whirling darkness and his skull vibrated with the endless cacophony.  He struggled to remember his mental exercises.  If he could just marshal his sense of self, he could force the chaos into something he could understand and work with.

He could do this.  He could do this.  He had a plan.

Okay, yes, he was definitely going to die.

The hurricane of presence tore at him formlessly, a dozen entities pulling in different directions, all trying to draw on different aspects of his mind.  And then, by phases, the tearing lessened. One by one the entities realigned and found an internal synchrony.  The shadows shifted, fell together, and finally cohered into one shape on the wall in front of him.

Dirk stared at the single shadow, numb, stunned, ears ringing with the silence.  That had not… gone quite the way he had envisioned.  Somewhere beneath the numbness he could already feel the internal tirade brewing over how badly he had miscalculated the situation and his capabilities.

The new presence pushed against him, many minds pressed together but currently agreed to act as one. The truce balanced uneasily, the potential of power like an avalanche held back by a single pebble.  

He had no idea what he had just invited in.

The shadow on the wall–his shadow-brother–rippled briefly and then leaned back and propped a shadow elbow against an unseen object.

 _‘Sup,_ said a voice in his mind that sounded oddly like his own.

“Hey,” Dirk said, kind of blankly.

_I’d estimate about 97% of us would classify that thing you just did as Really Fucking Stupid._

Dirk slumped back against the floor, heedless of the smearing of blood and ashes across his pages of notes.  “Yeah.  Welcome to my head.”

 

\--

 _All night hearing voices telling me_  
_That I should get some sleep_  
_Because tomorrow might be good for something_

_-Matchbox 20, "Unwell"_


End file.
